This week the internets were flooded with discussions and news and comments on Professor Tim Hunt's statements about women in labs. And though they certainly have their problems (which need addressing), the hard sciences alas are not the only fields in which women face a sexually hostile environment.
This week two history graduate students at UCLA filed a lawsuit against the school* and its trustees which states that the school did not properly address their respective complaints of sexual harassment and assault by one history faculty member. Both women were, in some way, discouraged from moving forward with the complaint and/or disciplinary hearings. There was an investigation of one of the women's complaints, but she alleges she was not apprised of how the situation was being handled. There was no investigation of the other.
We have seen more and more graduate students coming forward with experiences of harassment. These stories should be increasing the awareness that the situation of graduate students does not resemble that of either undergraduates or faculty members, though they have the duties/responsibilities of both. So when graduate students experience harassment and possible retaliation, administrators need to realize the unique position these students are in. One faculty member can have a huge influence on a graduate student's education and career. This does not mean that schools should take more seriously the complaints of sexual harassment and assault when they involve faculty and graduate students, but that there are different issues. This lawsuit may make that dynamic a little more clear.
* UCLA is already on the list of schools OCR is investigating.
Showing posts with label graduate school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label graduate school. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Wednesday, February 04, 2015
Litigation Roundup
Two separate Title IX lawsuits have been filed recently, one challenging disparities in athletic opportunities at a high school, while the other alleges a college mishandled her complaint of having been raped by a fellow student.
And in another story, a Title IX lawsuit was partially dismissed.
- A parent in Englewood, Tennessee, is suing the McMinn County Board of Education on behalf of his daughter, a freshman at McMinn Central High School who participates in softball and volleyball. He alleges that disparities in the athletic opportunities for girls violate Title IX. In particular, he alleges that the softball team has to pay itself for field maintenance and equipment, amenities that are provided to boys' teams from the school budget. Also, the school does not provide the softball team with a lighted field, which limits the team's scheduling options for practices and games. The complaint also notes that the boys' baseball team is provided superior quality locker rooms, dugouts, field house, storage facility, playing surface, and warm up and practice areas. The lawsuit seeks an injunction against continued discrimination and damages to compensate the plaintiff for out-of-pocket expenses and other costs.
- A former student is suing the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, claiming that she was forced to withdraw after she reported to school officials that she had been raped by a fellow student at an off-campus party. She alleges that school officials responded to her report by advising her to leave school, since they could not guarantee her safety. Additionally, she claims that they did not administer a drug test, leaving her on her own to discover that her assailant had drugged her with diazepam, that they failed to protect her from further contact with him, that they threatened to sue her if she spoke out, and that they breached her confidentiality. Moreover, she alleges that she experienced a sexually hostile environment after a school employee who was dating the alleged, disclosed details of the incident to the campus community. Her complaint demands damages to compensate her for emotional distress and other costs, as well as an injunction that would require the school to do a better job responding to victims in the future by implementing drug tests and protecting them from harassment and retaliation.
And in another story, a Title IX lawsuit was partially dismissed.
- The Bibb County School District in Georgia prevailed in dismissing part of a student's Title IX claim seeking damages for a 2012 rape she suffered at the hands of a gang of fellow students who had orchestrated a plan to attack her in a school restroom. The student alleged that two prior instances of gang rape at the school, one in 2008 and another in 2002, should have put the school on notice of the threat, one of the required elements for institutional liability to attach in cases of sexual harassment and sexual violence among peers. But the court ruled that the two earlier gang rapes could not serve as notice because they were sufficiently different, having been conducted by different gangs than the one that raped the plaintiff. In imposing this requirement for gang-specific notice, the court rejected plaintiff's argument that the school's notice of a gang rape problem in general should suffice. The plaintiff's other argument, that the school also responded to her own rape with deliberate indifference, continues to be litigated. The remaining claim could potentially result in damages attributable to the school's indifferent response, which itself could have been the source of some independent emotional distress. However, the dismissed claim was likely considerably more valuable to the plaintiff, as it would have made the school liable for damages arising from the rape itself. Doe v. Bibb County Sch. Dist., 2015 WL 403320 (M.D. Ga. Jan. 28, 2015).
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Expanding the movement
Two recent pieces about sexual assault and harassment on college campuses will hopefully open up more dialogue and more changes that offer protections to others in addition to undergraduate students.
Actually, one of the pieces--from Inside Higher Ed--reported on the harassment that takes place when doing fieldwork; so in off-campus situations. The article reports on the recent publication of a survey that asked people involved in off-campus fieldwork about their experiences with sexual harassment in these settings.
The harassment happens between colleagues and also between supervisors and trainees (often graduate students or postdocs). In other words, most often it is between people with different levels of power, though it is not unheard of for harassment to occur, for example, among graduate students or other trainees. The harassment women experienced was more likely to occur with people who were more powerful than them, whereas the harassment men reported was more often peer-to-peer harassment.
There were 666 respondents to the survey, 78 % of whom were women. A majority of respondents (about 75%) had heard of or witnessed sexual harassment in the field. A slightly lower number, 64% said they had experienced it themselves. And 20% reported being victims of sexual assault, which the researchers defined as any unwanted sexual contact, including rape.
Several academic professional societies have responded to the study noting their obvious opposition to harassment in the field. But whether these organizations have policies or make statements is of little consequence since they generally have no authority over the people involved. In other words, schools need to address this issue. Fieldwork is a very different situation and it requires very specific attention. How does one report harassment and assault while in the field? How are protections offered to victims? What are the protocols from removing an assailant from the field?
An additional factor that is specific to this situation is that trainees and lower level colleagues have a lot to lose by reporting assault and harassment. Supervisors can be dissertation committee chairs and members, advisers, tenure committee members, recommendation writers and general notable people in their fields.
This is an issue that also faces graduate students. This was well-noted by Brown graduate student, Sara Matthiesen in this article. Matthiesen has been advocating for specific attention to the issues graduate students face being neither students nor employees. Private institutions, such as Brown, do not have to let graduate students unionize, thus providing even fewer avenues for protections. Matthiesen is asking for greater awareness within departments about resources and training for graduate students about sexual harassment.
Peer to peer harassment can be addressed via student judicial boards, but harassment by supervisors, professors, and others who hold more power than graduate students go through different processes which end in a final decision about, for example, the employment of a faculty member, with the word of one individual (usually president, dean, or provost) even if an entire panel has heard the case and made a recommendation. Victims also do not receive the same level of support in going through a grievance process--no advocate, no office providing support.
But even these practical issues do not entirely address the problem of the academic hierarchy. Matthiesen sums it up well:
Graduate students not only risk their educational opportunities when they take steps to hold advisers and colleagues accountable for sexual violence. No longer able to conduct research in the lab, or obtain letters of recommendation from the leaders in their field, or secure access to faculty research money, they risk losing their current and future livelihoods. No amount of Title IX coordinators or university-wide committees on sexual misconduct can correct for the power imbalance that defines this professional relationship, an asymmetry that is only compounded when universities refuse to acknowledge graduate students’ work lives and goals.
This moment of student activism on the issue of campus sexual assault has been impressive and drawn considerable attention and hopefully will result in positive changes. And though the focus has been on the experiences of undergraduates, it is a good time to realize that sexual harassment and assault happen to other members of a university community both on and off campus. As many schools scramble to correct and clarify their policies and procedures for undergraduate sexual assault, they should also take the moment to broaden their scope.
Actually, one of the pieces--from Inside Higher Ed--reported on the harassment that takes place when doing fieldwork; so in off-campus situations. The article reports on the recent publication of a survey that asked people involved in off-campus fieldwork about their experiences with sexual harassment in these settings.
The harassment happens between colleagues and also between supervisors and trainees (often graduate students or postdocs). In other words, most often it is between people with different levels of power, though it is not unheard of for harassment to occur, for example, among graduate students or other trainees. The harassment women experienced was more likely to occur with people who were more powerful than them, whereas the harassment men reported was more often peer-to-peer harassment.
There were 666 respondents to the survey, 78 % of whom were women. A majority of respondents (about 75%) had heard of or witnessed sexual harassment in the field. A slightly lower number, 64% said they had experienced it themselves. And 20% reported being victims of sexual assault, which the researchers defined as any unwanted sexual contact, including rape.
Several academic professional societies have responded to the study noting their obvious opposition to harassment in the field. But whether these organizations have policies or make statements is of little consequence since they generally have no authority over the people involved. In other words, schools need to address this issue. Fieldwork is a very different situation and it requires very specific attention. How does one report harassment and assault while in the field? How are protections offered to victims? What are the protocols from removing an assailant from the field?
An additional factor that is specific to this situation is that trainees and lower level colleagues have a lot to lose by reporting assault and harassment. Supervisors can be dissertation committee chairs and members, advisers, tenure committee members, recommendation writers and general notable people in their fields.
This is an issue that also faces graduate students. This was well-noted by Brown graduate student, Sara Matthiesen in this article. Matthiesen has been advocating for specific attention to the issues graduate students face being neither students nor employees. Private institutions, such as Brown, do not have to let graduate students unionize, thus providing even fewer avenues for protections. Matthiesen is asking for greater awareness within departments about resources and training for graduate students about sexual harassment.
Peer to peer harassment can be addressed via student judicial boards, but harassment by supervisors, professors, and others who hold more power than graduate students go through different processes which end in a final decision about, for example, the employment of a faculty member, with the word of one individual (usually president, dean, or provost) even if an entire panel has heard the case and made a recommendation. Victims also do not receive the same level of support in going through a grievance process--no advocate, no office providing support.
But even these practical issues do not entirely address the problem of the academic hierarchy. Matthiesen sums it up well:
Graduate students not only risk their educational opportunities when they take steps to hold advisers and colleagues accountable for sexual violence. No longer able to conduct research in the lab, or obtain letters of recommendation from the leaders in their field, or secure access to faculty research money, they risk losing their current and future livelihoods. No amount of Title IX coordinators or university-wide committees on sexual misconduct can correct for the power imbalance that defines this professional relationship, an asymmetry that is only compounded when universities refuse to acknowledge graduate students’ work lives and goals.
This moment of student activism on the issue of campus sexual assault has been impressive and drawn considerable attention and hopefully will result in positive changes. And though the focus has been on the experiences of undergraduates, it is a good time to realize that sexual harassment and assault happen to other members of a university community both on and off campus. As many schools scramble to correct and clarify their policies and procedures for undergraduate sexual assault, they should also take the moment to broaden their scope.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Ninth Circuit Reinstates Grad Student's Retaliation Case
Monica Emeldi, a graduate student in the University of Oregon's Department of Education, sued her institution under Title IX after the faculty chair of her dissertation committee resigned in ostensible retaliation for her complaints about gender equity within the department. A federal district court had earlier granted summary judgment in favor of the university, but yesterday, an appellate panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling and reinstated her case.
According the Ninth Circuit's analysis, Emeldi satisfied the basic elements of a retaliation case under Title IX, including that she engaged in "protected conduct" when she presented a memo to department officials summarizing graduate students' complaints about the department's bias towards male graduate students and failure to hire female faculty members. Soon thereafter, Horner, the chair of her dissertation committee resigned, a consequence that the court agreed was a consequence that a jury could find "materially adverse" that "might have dissuaded a reasonable [person] from making or supporting a charge of discrimination."
Last, the court determined that Emeldi presented sufficient evidence on which a jury could conclude that Horner's resignation was related to her complaint, including evidence of the proximity in time between Horner's resignation and Emeldi's complaint, that Horner knew about Emeldi's complaint, Horner's gender bias in other contexts, such as favoritism to male graduate students, that Horner resigned without helping Emeldi secure a replacement chair, that Horner had in the past praised Emeldi's work, which suggests that Horner did not resign for nondiscriminatory reasons that he claimed, and that Emeldi was unable to find a replacement chair even after asking fifteen other members of the department.
One judge, however, dissented from the majority's conclusion that Emeldi's case should have a chance to reach a jury, basing his objection primary on Emeldi's failure to provide corroborating evidence by other witnesses and relying instead on her own affidavits and testimony. The dissent concludes, "Title IX's worthy antidiscrimination objectives notwithstanding, to let Ms. Emeldi's claims go to a jury will serve only as a precedent-setting example of how little it takes to turn a failed supervisory relationship between a professor and his Ph.D. candidate into a federal case of gender discrimination."
Emeldi v. Univ. of Oregon, 2012 WL 933821 (9th Cir. Mar. 21, 2012).
According the Ninth Circuit's analysis, Emeldi satisfied the basic elements of a retaliation case under Title IX, including that she engaged in "protected conduct" when she presented a memo to department officials summarizing graduate students' complaints about the department's bias towards male graduate students and failure to hire female faculty members. Soon thereafter, Horner, the chair of her dissertation committee resigned, a consequence that the court agreed was a consequence that a jury could find "materially adverse" that "might have dissuaded a reasonable [person] from making or supporting a charge of discrimination."
Last, the court determined that Emeldi presented sufficient evidence on which a jury could conclude that Horner's resignation was related to her complaint, including evidence of the proximity in time between Horner's resignation and Emeldi's complaint, that Horner knew about Emeldi's complaint, Horner's gender bias in other contexts, such as favoritism to male graduate students, that Horner resigned without helping Emeldi secure a replacement chair, that Horner had in the past praised Emeldi's work, which suggests that Horner did not resign for nondiscriminatory reasons that he claimed, and that Emeldi was unable to find a replacement chair even after asking fifteen other members of the department.
One judge, however, dissented from the majority's conclusion that Emeldi's case should have a chance to reach a jury, basing his objection primary on Emeldi's failure to provide corroborating evidence by other witnesses and relying instead on her own affidavits and testimony. The dissent concludes, "Title IX's worthy antidiscrimination objectives notwithstanding, to let Ms. Emeldi's claims go to a jury will serve only as a precedent-setting example of how little it takes to turn a failed supervisory relationship between a professor and his Ph.D. candidate into a federal case of gender discrimination."
Emeldi v. Univ. of Oregon, 2012 WL 933821 (9th Cir. Mar. 21, 2012).
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